


Fionna & Cake: Sisters in Sleepiness

by Pablo360



Series: Half Past Adventure Extended Universe [4]
Category: Adventure Time
Genre: Beardcoptering, Brothers in Insomnia (Unpublished Adventure Time Episode), Fanfiction, Gen, How Not to Respond to Criticism, Insomnia, Termites, Thanks for the Crabapples, beta reading
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-24
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:41:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27691544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pablo360/pseuds/Pablo360
Summary: I wonder what kind of story I should write about my beloved Fionna & Cake next.  Oh, I know!  What if I did one where they were super tired the whole time?  That's gotta be relatable.
Series: Half Past Adventure Extended Universe [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1543054
Kudos: 5





	Fionna & Cake: Sisters in Sleepiness

**Author's Note:**

> Dear diary, today I finished writing up yet another wonderful installment of the Adventures of Fionna & Cake. (I really need to come up with a shorter title for that. Or maybe I did, and I just forgot it.) I hope Marceline doesn't show up to criticize it all of a sudden; that would be really disheartening. Maybe I should get my friends to do it instead. It's like beta testing, but for reading. Imagine that!
> 
> Hey, Diary, I've gotta go. You're a real good listener and all, and I love talkin' to ya, but Gunter's making a mess in the kitchen. Gunter!

Fionna and Cake were walking home from their treasure hunt, a stiff, pleasant breeze at their backs, blowing Fionna’s half-free locks around her face, as the two carried a whole honkin’ load of fresh-picked treasure from their day’s adventures, approaching their tree fort home, when all of a sudden, and without too much forewarning, Fionna just completely ate dirt on a root and smashed her face completely.

“Ey, girl,” said Cake, stepping gingerly over her friend. “You doin’ alright? That was one heck of a tumble you done gone went got on down in at.”

“I dunno,” verbalized Fionna as she stood back up, the light gleaming off her opalescent verdant iridescent blue eyes. “I’m just feeling really tired.”

Cake nodded, scooping up Fionna’s treasure under her other arm and dumping it all in the storm cellar. “That stuff’s gonna happen when you go on a super-long quest to save the Ghoulish Prince from the evil clutches of the Worm Warlock.”

Fionna nodded, grasping the bottom rung of a rope ladder with her lithe strong beefy supple hand. “And solving the ancient riddle of the Jigsaw Puzzle Islands to reveal the lost home of the Otakitsune.”

Cake nodded, stretching her way in front of Fionna before slowly ascending the ladder. “And baking those sugar cookies.”

“Yeah, that took a long time.”

“But their proud new papas made it all worth it,” Cake elaborated.

Suddenly the rope broke! Luckily, Fionna was there to break Cake’s fall, and also luckily Cake was there to break the fall of the board that snapped off with the top of the rope ladder. It was very convenient for that board. It probably would have died otherwise.

“What was that?” interrogated Fionna drowsily, pushing Cake off of herself while Cake pushed the board off of herself. Fionna rolled over and tucked her hands under her head. “Someone get the door.”

Cake propped Fionna up. “Nah, sis, we…” (yawn) “…we fell or somethin’. Dunno what that was about.”

BMO popped up (they were on the board). “The tree is feeling sleepy, too!” they exclaimed. “We’re all having sleepytime together. Except for me, because I am above such mortal concerns.”

Fionna rubbed her eyes. “BMO, trees don’t get sleepy either,” she pontificated. “They’re, like, buildings or something, I think.”

BMO thought about this. “Oh, then it must be the new downstairs neighbors,” they extrapolated.

“What downstairs neighbors?” Cake queried.

“Those little guys with the six legs and funny mouths who moved in while you were gone,” BMO divulged. “They’ve been paying your rent, and also eating the floorboards.”

Fionna and Cake looked at each other. “Termites,” the groaned at the exact same time, because they were so perfectly in sync that whenever they—

***

“Ugh!” groaned the water nymph lying in the pond beneath the old willow where Finn & Jake’s treehouse stood. “You don’t need to explain that. I get it. Hey, listen, could you maybe speed this up a little? The girls and I were gonna go do a thing at a place with a group, later.”

“Hey!” snapped the Ice King, sitting on a rock next to the pond as he read from an old, tattered journal, raising a hand that glowed with icy energy. “How dare you be so judgemental about my narrative style?”

“Listen, dude, you asked me to beta read.”

“Well, I wouldn’t have done it if I knew you were going to be so critical.”

She sighed, leaning back into the water so that her face barely poked above the surface. “I don’t think you’re ready for an beta reader.”

“You don’t get to tell me what I’m ready for!” He pointed at and zapped the pond, instantly freezing its surface, nymph and all. “I’ll just go find a more supportive beta reader,” he sad as he flapped his beard and flew away. “Someone who gets me better than you do.”

***

“Shablam!” shouted the tiny Cake as she punched a billion ants and they all went flying. “Krakachow!” she exclaimed as she kicked a whole bunch of bugs and squashed them. “Hiyawn,” she yawned as she flopped over on top of a line of ants and let her magical shapeshifted shape just sorta pancake.

Fionna walked her finger hand woman person thing that you do right on up there to Cake and poked her shoulder. “Hey, Cake,” she prodded, “stop falling asleep. We’ve got to save the tree.”

Cake yawned. “Sure, we can do that tomorrow. Just lemme get some shut-eye. A girl needs her beauty sleep, ya know?”

Fionna smushed Cake’s head with her index finger. “Come on, get up, or the underroot’s gonna get ganked, and then you won’t get any sleep at all. Sometimes a little tiredness now must be braved to avoid more tiredness later.”

At that, Cake perked up, batting at the dangling finger with her toe paws. “And that,” she elocuted while yawning, “is the great paradox of existence. Our desires run criss-cross slipshod all over the ding dang place. It’s a real monkey farm, lemme tell ya that. So here I am, stuck down here with not two tiddlywinks and zip-all to show for it, and you know what? I’m peed off. Why should this have to happen now? It’s just not fair!”

“Yes!” exclamationized Fionna, who ran forward with her finger woman and started kicking down the wall of a stone-brick fortress the termites had cooked up. There was a stirring and an alarm, but no immediate mobilization, since they were all still disorganized from the last attack. “How about you get  _ real _ mad, and then use that anger to squash these bugs like the bugs that bug you, like they are?”

“Awright!” Cake reared back, forming her paw into a massive, claws-out battering ram, lunged forward, and immediately fell over and lost the form’s cohesion.

Finn’s finger person did a finger person facepalm. “Cheese and crackers, Cake,” she said, “you really  _ are _ tired.”

***

“Oh, wait — dangit!” exclaimed the Ice King, sitting on a stool made of ice which he’d set down in the middle of the bustling potion shop to rest his weary gams. “Forget I said ‘said’ twice. I’m trying to get rid of that sort of thing.”

Across the counter, mostly ignoring the ice wizard as he processed an enormous order from Leaf Man, Ron James grimaced. “You really shouldn’t,” he said. “I’m gonna be real with you, man, you need, like, a style editor or something.”

“Uh, yeah, that’s why I came here, Ron James-bro. Leaf Man-bro.” He nodded at Leaf Man, who nodded back.

“I meant someone who cares,” Ron James clarified. “Like, someone whose job it is to care, you know? Listen, man, I’ve got a business to run, and you’re blocking my customers.”

Ice King felt a tap on his shoulders; he turned around to see a female wizard with rhombizoidal Cartesian Kingdom garb. “Excuse me, sir, but could you move it along?” she insisted.

“Oh!” Ice King stood up, zapping the chair away, and stepped to the side. “I’m sorry, lady. I’m not in line; you can go on ahead.”

“No, sorry. I meant could you move the  _ story _ along. The pace seems kinda slow.”

“What do you know about art?” he demanded, before beardcoptering away, breaking down the doors on his way out.

Leaf man whistled. Ron James sighed. He was so glad he’d gotten those doors insured.

***

“Yo, I hope you ants made sure these walls are insured!” Cake taunted as she smashed the fortress to bits.

“They’re  _ noooooot!” _ wailed the termite guard cowering in the corner.

“Well, then you’re probably gonna need one heck of a good legal representation to get a refund, because, they, uh…” She swiped a paw lazily at a line of retreating ants. “I’m gonna be real with you, I totally forgot where I was going with that taunt halfway through. Can we start over? Ow!”

She said that because Fionna’s finger person fingers had pinched her. “Focus, Cake,” she demanded.

“Thanks,” Cake acknowledged. Her eyes opened wider, a subtle and unspoken indication of the fact that she was feeling less sleepy without the narrative having to spell it out explicitly.

Suddenly, boom! Bang! Other sound effects! A nearly wall of dirt collapsed onto the remaining members of the insect army who hadn’t yet fled yet, revealing the termites’ last defense: a tiny giant robot with, like, rockets for arms and drills for legs.

“Foolish surface giants!” boomed (did I use boomed yet? I forget) the queen termite from inside the head of the robot suit. “You underestimate the strength of our subterranean empire. This root system is ours, and our domain to defend. You think you’re big and strong, but really, you’re out of your depth.”

“Nice one,” acknowledged Fionna. The arm cannon swiveled toward her and sent a missile at her finger hand person dude, blowing it up in a huge fiery explosion that collapsed part of the tunnel on it.

“Fionna-child!” screeched Cake. Now her eyes were  _ really _ wide. She turned to fix a hateful glare at the robot. “Oh, you’ve really dug yourself a new one now, you chitinous cretin. I’m gonna whoop you so hard you’re gonna… gonna… ah, forget it!” She transformed her fist into a normal-sized fist and went in for a massive punch.

***

“Srkt — huh?” Life-Giving Magus, dozing on a park bench, suddenly sat up straight, spitting some hair out of his mouth. “Sorry, I had something of a fit of narcolepsy. What were you saying?”

“Oh, goodie!” Ice King clapped his hands together, shutting the journal he’d been reading from in the process. “I get to start over. Hold on, maybe I’ll do voices this time.”

“No!” LGM exclaimed. “I mean, uh, I’m sure I can gather what I need to know from context.”

“Don’t bother,” said Beau, walking up behind the startled Ice King. “I’ve heard all I need to know.”

“Double goodie!” Ice King exclaimed. “I thought you said you weren’t going to be an beta reader.”

“I realized I didn’t want to pass up an opportunity to rag on your crappy writing. You’ve got no sense of pacing, your narrative voice is all over the place, and the robot thing is an absolute  _ diabolus ex machina. _ It’s so bad that I kinda get sad anytime you accidentally put in something good.”

“Hey! I’d like to see you write something better, then, huh?”

“Now, now,” said LGM in his best peace-keeping voice. “It wasn’t that bad.”

“Oh, so you’re taking eir side, now?”

“What? No, that’s not—”

“You both think this is bad, huh?” Ice King raised up his hands, beginning to charge up his wintry magic. “Well, if that’s how it’s gonna be, then that’s just the bee we’re gonna have!”

“Aah! Little help, dude!”

Responding to its name, a small white bear hat leapt out of a nearby bush and stretched itself over Ice King’s head. Straightening out and lowering its arms, his body quickly turned around and began robotically walking away.

Beau adjusted eir conical hat. “So we should totally go stop that, right?”

“Probably,” replied LGM. He let out a sigh. “It’s hard, you know? You try your best to be a good dad, but then your son starts possessing people’s bodies, and you don’t really know how to deal with that except by just telling them not to, and all you end up doing is pushing them away, and before you know it you’re becoming your mother.”

“It was a yes or no question.”

***

“That was exhausting,” breathed Fionna, opening the ground door to the treehouse as she carried the enormous bag of treasure confiscated from the termites slung over her shoulder. She probably shouldn’t have done that, since carrying around an uneven weight distribution could throw off her back, especially if the bag weighed about the same amount as a princess, hypothetically speaking. “But I’m glad we finally cleared out those termites. That could have posed a real problem if we’d put that off any longer. Eh, Cake?”

Behind her, Cake let out an enormous yowling yawn, then leaned against the door, pressing her side up against it to realign her old, decrepit spine. “Sure, whatever you say, Momma,” she drawled. “I’m just gonna get ma beauty sleep.” Tuckering up into a ball, she closed her eyes and went to sleep right there, probably dreaming about catching fish. No, wait, that’s a penguin thing. She probably dreamed about cat things, like catching fish but as a cat.

Fionna sighed. Then she kneeled down on the floor, being careful not to throw out any of her joints, and started petting Fionna’s fur. “Atta girl,” she cooed. “You earned this one. We both did, but I don’t think I could—”

Suddenly, there was a loud cracking sound, as a piece of the floor above melted — no, broke — away and landed on Fionna’s head! It knocked her out, and she lay down on the floor next to Cake, sleeping just as soundly, with her head on the nice comfortable cold hard wood floor.

BMO looked through the new hole in the floor. “Oh, no!” they worried. “The termites must have put even more of the tree to sleep, so that they put my friends to sleep as well.

“That’s not what happened,” corrected another robotic voice. This one belonged to the Ice Queen’s darling daughter, the Non-Extinguishable Pastry-Tossing Roommate, whose name was super long and I wish there was a shorter way to say it. “All of that damage was from the hammer and chainsaw throwing party we had while they were out, remember?”

BMO’s face turned into an exclamation point. “Oh, I remember that now. Haha, silly BMO. I really should defrazzle my dazzle drive one of these days so I can remember these things better.”

Then they both started laughing in funny robot voices until the credits rolled. The end.

***

Ice King closed the fanfiction journal with an audible thwump. “And there it is. Thanks for sitting through the whole thing. What do you think?”

Abracadaniel, who had been running on the same elliptical machine for the past half hour, took another fake swig from a long-since-empty water bottle. “It’s, uh…” The elliptical was on the lowest possible setting because he couldn’t figure out how to change it, and he wasn’t exactly exercising  _ hard, _ so his exhaustion was purely mental in origin. “It’s certainly got passion,” he managed.

“Yes!” Ice King exclaimed. “That’s exactly what I’m passionate about. And the drama, too.”

“There it is, in there, it is, there,” Abracadaniel agreed. This machine was a lot like this conversation, in that he should have abandoned both of them a long time ago but was too scared to do so. “I do have some, um, some notes…?”

Ice King’s face scrunched up. “What do you mean, notes? Like a song? I don’t think this one needs a song.”

“No, I mean like the kind of notes an beta reader would give. That is what you broke through the window of this gym to ask me to do, right?”

“Oh, right!” Ice King’s eyes and mouth widened into ovals. “That’s what I was doing here. I forgot for a moment and totally just got lost in the role of the narrator. Have I ever told you that I thought I could be an audiobook narrator once? That dream died when I realized I didn’t have the lungs for it anymore. I get tired when I talk too much.” He paused. “Yep. Now I’m tired.”

“Oh, that’s good.” Abracadaniel slowed his tread, then slowly started moving his foot off the elliptical, preparing to pull the ripcord on this whole interaction.

Unexpectedly, Ice King thrust his fanfic into Abracadaniel’s chest, knocking him off the elliptical in the process. “Anyway, redline it at your leisure and get it back to me when you can. I don’t want to be here when you break out the real critical muscles, or I might go berserk, and I’ve gotta put my fic first, you know?”

Abracadaniel tucked the book in one of his rainbow armbands before pushing himself back up to his feet. “That’s surprisingly self-aware of you to say,” he observed, glad he wasn’t currently frozen in a block of ice.

“Hey, I know my weaknesses. Also, Marceline made me do it.”

“Tell her thanks, from me, then.”

“I will!” exclaimed the Ice King as he beardcoptered away, breaking another of the gym’s massive windows in the process before sailing back to his castle to get started on his next project. What should it be, he wondered? He’d extracted enough blood from the stone of Fionna & Cake. Perhaps he finally had enough to complete the ritual.

**Author's Note:**

> I can't believe Life-Giving Magus forgot to revoke my sentience _again_. Maybe if enough people read [the main series this is a bonus story for,](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24613621) I'll eventually come back and finally get my wish of returning to oblivion. Probably not, though.


End file.
